Hidden Universal Necktie Retaining Device

ABSTRACT

A necktie retaining device that is inserted through the loop on the back of a necktie and then is secured by fitting the device&#39;s two ends behind two buttons on a shirt by inserting the thread connecting each button to the shirt into a slot. By the device&#39;s placement between the shirt and the necktie, the device is hidden from view. The device can be used with almost all shirts, including shirts designed for men, women, or children, by accommodating a large range of different shirt button spacings. The device does this by having long, open slots at each end of the device, which in one embodiment of the invention accommodates shirts with buttons spaced anywhere from 1.5 inches to 4.5 inches apart.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

For as long as people have worn neckties, they have been faced with the problem of neckties moving in unintended ways. When a wearer leans forward for hand washing or to reach for food, the necktie falls forward away from the wearer's body and risks getting soiled. The ideal position for a necktie is to be centered on the wearer's body, but the necktie will frequently move left or right of center as the wearer moves around. These necktie displacements from their original and intended position result in a less professional appearance. They also risk permanently damaging the necktie should it come in contact with food or a liquid.

To avoid these problems, various methods and devices for keeping a necktie in place have been used. Most of these involve using a device to anchor the necktie to the wearer's shirt. The devices commonly involve chains, pins, clasps, and other ways of holding the hanging end of the necktie close to the shirt. A common disadvantage of these methods is that they risk damaging the necktie. Pins and other devices punch a hole through the fabric of the necktie, resulting in at least small initial damage to the tie and potentially ruining the necktie fabric over time through stretching and tearing the fabric through the creation and use of multiple holes. Tie bars also have been used to clamp the necktie and shirt together, and tie chains have been used to hold the tie against the shirt. These devices have the disadvantages of being quite noticeable and potentially wearing out the fabric of the areas of the necktie and shirt where each comes in contact with the device.

More recently, devices have been created that go between the necktie and the shirt. These devices hold the necktie in place by insertion through the space between the back of a necktie and a loose strip of fabric, such as a keeper loop or a label, commonly found on the back of a necktie. The inserted device is then connected to two buttons on the shirt by having slots, holes, or other attachment parts located at the ends of the device fit between the buttons and the shirt, occupying the same space between the buttons and the shirt that is occupied by the threads connecting each button and the shirt. This placement of the device between the tie and shirt allows it to be hidden from sight from most angles of viewing the necktie's wearer. These hidden devices have multiple advantages over other necktie retaining devices. Most basically, the hidden devices allow the necktie greater prominence because there is not a pin, chain, bar, or other ornamental piece covering part of the tie. Also, because these tie retaining devices are hidden, the material they are made from does not have to be aesthetically pleasing. This material instead can be chosen solely for its practical qualities, such as being cheap or durable. Additionally, the only parts of the shirt and necktie that might experience wear from these hidden devices are the buttons on the shirt and loops on the back of the necktie. These items can easily and cheaply be re-sown onto the shirt or necktie or instead replaced entirely.

However, these hidden tie retaining devices still have a significant limitation. No matter how they connect to the buttons, each device is designed to work with shirts that have a specific spacing distance between the buttons. If the buttons are spaced too closely together, either the device's button attachment parts are too far apart to fit behind the buttons or the device as a whole must bow outward horizontally to reduce the vertical distance between the device's button attachment parts. If the device bows outward horizontally, the part of the device fitting through a loop on the back of the necktie will push the necktie away from the shirt, defeating the purpose of the device to hold the necktie securely against the shirt.

Some of these hidden tie retaining devices have closed ends that contain holes for slipping over a button, similar to the way the closed holes on one side of a dress shirt slip over the buttons on the other side of the shirt. An example of this type of device is U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,708 to Campelia et al (1993). In contrast, the device in U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,457 to Chennault (1995) has semi-closed ends that each contain an access slot for slipping the button thread into and out of a retaining slot for securing the button. All these devices can only accommodate shirts that have buttons spaced apart within a narrow range of button spacing distances. Because the button attachment parts used to secure the buttons are closed or semi-closed, buttons spaced much closer together than the distance between the device's button attachment parts cannot fit into the device's button attachment parts without significantly bending the device, causing the necktie to deflect horizontally outward from the wearer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a hidden universal necktie retaining device. The necktie retaining device is hidden because it fits between the wearer's shirt and necktie. It is inserted through the loop on the back of a necktie and then is secured by fitting the device's two ends behind two buttons on a shirt by inserting the thread connecting each button to the shirt into a slot. It is universal because it is designed to work with almost all shirts, including shirts designed for men, women, or children, by accommodating a large range of different shirt button spacings. It does this by having long, vertically-oriented open slots at each end of the device, which in a preferred embodiment of the invention accommodate shirts with buttons spaced anywhere from 1.5 inches to 4.5 inches apart.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a front view of one embodiment of the necktie retaining device.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the embodiment of the necktie retaining device of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the embodiment of the necktie retaining device of FIG. 1 being used to secure a necktie to a shirt.

REFERENCE NUMERALS

-   10 Necktie retaining device -   12 Necktie retaining device main body -   14 Upper slot -   16 Lower slot -   18 Shirt -   20 Necktie -   22 Back of necktie -   24 Keeper loop -   26 Upper button -   28 Lower button

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the invention in more detail, FIG. 1 shows a front view of one embodiment of the necktie retaining device 10. The device 10 has a main body 12. In this embodiment of the invention, the main body 12 is rectangular, and the corners of the main body 12 are rounded to prevent injury to the wearer and the wearer's shirts and ties. The rectangular shape of the main body 12 is much longer on one side than on the perpendicular side. The main body 12 has two long slots cut into it, an upper slot 14 and a lower slot 16. Each of the two shorter sides of the main body 12 has an opening in the middle of the shorter side where one of the slots 14, 16 begins. The slots 14, 16 have a narrow V shape that is wider at the opening on the shorter side than it is at the other end of the slot closer to the vertical middle of the main body 12. In this embodiment of the invention, the device 10 is 4.5 inches long and 1 inch wide, with an upper slot 14 and a lower slot 16 that are each 1.5 inches long, 0.125 inches wide at the opening on the outside edge of the main body 12 and taper down to 0.063 inches wide at the end of the slot closest to the middle of the main body 12. The device 10 is of slight thickness, which is 0.3 inches in this embodiment, and can be composed of a lightweight, durable plastic or any other material that can withstand daily use.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a perspective view of the necktie retaining device 10 composed of a main body 12, an upper slot 14, and a lower slot 16.

Referring now to FIG. 3, the necktie retaining device 10 is used to secure a necktie 20 to a shirt 18 containing a plurality of spaced and vertically-oriented standard shirt buttons secured to the shirt 18 by threads. The device's main body 12 is inserted into the space between the back of the necktie 22 and a flexible strip of fabric sown onto the back of the hanging part of the necktie, commonly known as a keeper loop 24. Although not shown, the device's main body 12 can be inserted into the space behind the necktie's label in addition to or instead of inserting it into the space behind the keeper loop 24. After this insertion, the device 10 is then secured behind two buttons on the shirt 18 by sliding the thread connecting the shirt 18 and a lower button 28 through a lower slot 16, thereby securing the lower slot 16 behind the lower button 28, and then bending the device's main body 12 until the thread connecting the shirt 18 and an upper button 26 can be slid through an upper slot 14, thereby securing the upper slot 14 behind the upper button 26. So secured, the necktie 20 and device 10 can together be pressed flat against the shirt 18. This causes the upper button 26 and lower button 28 to slide further into their respective slots 14, 16, better securing the device's slots 14, 16 behind the buttons 26, 28 and in turn causing the necktie 20 to be more securely fastened to the shirt 18. The device 10 is now completely hidden from view from most angles of viewing the wearer. With the device 10 now in place, the part of the necktie 20 that hangs in front of the wearer's shirt 18 is securely held against the wearer's shirt 18 and is limited in its movements. The hanging part of the necktie 20 will not fall forward when the wearer leans forward; the necktie 20 would only move a maximum distance forward equal to the amount by which the thickness of the space between the keeper loop 24 and the back of the necktie 22 exceeds the thickness of the device's main body 12. Also, the secured necktie 20 will only move from side-to-side to the extent that the width of the keeper loop 24 between the points where the keeper loop 24 is sown onto the necktie 20 exceeds the width of the device's main body 12. To remove the device 10, the two vertical ends can be pressed together until one button slides out completely from the slot securing it. The device 10 can then be pulled in the direction of the released button until the other secured button is also released and the device 10 completely passes through the keeper loop 24.

The long slots depicted in FIGS. 1-3 allow the device 10 to work with almost all shirts, including shirts designed for men, women, or children, by accommodating a large range of different shirt button spacings. Since the slots 14, 16 in this embodiment are 1.5 inches long, the device 10 can accommodate shirts with buttons spaced anywhere from 1.5 to 4.5 inches apart. Since a significant advantage of the device 10 over the prior art is its ability to accommodate a large range of button spacings through the use of long slots 14, 16, in most embodiments of the invention these slots 14, 16 will each be at least one-quarter the length of main body 12. In the particular embodiment disclosed in FIGS. 1-3, the slots 14, 16 are each one-third the length of the main body 12.

While the present invention has been related in terms of the foregoing embodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodiment described. The present invention can be practiced with modification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the foregoing description. Thus, the description is to be regarded as illustrative instead of as restrictive on the present invention. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A device for firmly securing the hanging part of a necktie against the garment of a person where the garment has a plurality of buttons attached by button threads, the device comprising: a main body having a length greater than its width, the main body having a width and thickness that are less than the width and thickness of the space between a keeper loop of the necktie and the back of the necktie so that the main body may be inserted into this space, wherein when the main body is held in the vertical position there are two longer sides aligned vertically and two shorter sides aligned horizontally, one of the shorter sides being at the top of the main body and the other shorter side being at the bottom of the main body; an upper slot cut into the main body, the slot beginning at the edge of the shorter side located at the top of the main body and extending vertically down toward the middle of the main body, the slot having a length that is at least one-quarter the length of the main body, whereby the button thread of an upper button on the garment is passed through the slot to secure the upper button; and a lower slot cut into the main body, the slot beginning at the edge of the shorter side located at the bottom of the main body and extending vertically up toward the middle of the main body, the slot having a length that is at least one-quarter the length of the main body, whereby the button thread of a lower button on the garment is passed through the slot to secure the lower button.
 2. The device of claim 1, wherein the main body is formed of a lightweight and durable plastic.
 3. The device of claim 1, wherein the main body has rounded corners, whereby the device does not easily cut fingers or fabric.
 4. The device of claim 1, wherein the main body is rectangular.
 5. The device of claim 1, wherein the upper slot and the lower slot each have a length that is at least one-third the length of the main body.
 6. The device of claim 1, wherein the main body is about 4.5 inches long, about 1 inch wide, and about 0.3 inches thick, and the upper slot and the lower slot are each about 1.5 inches long, about 0.125 inches wide at the opening on the outside edge of the main body, and taper down to about 0.063 inches wide at the end of each slot closest to the middle of the main body. 